cannabisnews.com: Most Cannabis Home-Grown by ‘Fair-Trade’ Users
Most Cannabis Home-Grown by ‘Fair-Trade’ Users
Posted by CN Staff on October 08, 2005 at 18:56:13 PT
By Jenifer Johnston
Source: Sunday Herald
United Kingdom -- Home-grown cannabis now accounts for more than half the UK supply of the drug as ethically-minded users, concerned with supporting organised crime, shun dealers in favour of growing their own. Figures from the Independent Drugs Monitoring Unit show more than 66% of all cannabis consumed in the UK is now home-grown, while imports from Morocco, India and the Netherlands have plummeted. In Scotland, 8% of the population are believed to regularly smoke cannabis.
Experts believe that users wanting to dissociate themselves from criminal gangs are driving the home-growing trend, while sales of new technology such as “cold-light” lamps, which can avoid police detection, are making some users more confident in growing cannabis plants at home. Cannabis users concerned the dealer-bought cannabis resin has been polluted with with plastic, coffee, wax or other drugs, are also looking to home-growing to produce strong, untainted organic strains. The home-growing boom is increasingly commercial, with up to 20,000 people expected to visit HempExpo at Wembley Exhibition Centre in London next month where seeds and growing kits will be on sale. Hemp Expo organiser Phil Kilvington said the motivation for home-growers is often a personal “fair-trade” ethos. “Home-growing is a multi-billion pound industry in the UK – 10 years ago 90% of cannabis smoked in this country was coming from overseas, now it is more like 30%. “There is a 100% link between imported cannabis and criminal networks, many of whom are involved in other types of crime such as prostitution, trafficking, or class A drugs. Home-growers do not want to be associated with that.” Kilvington, editor of Weed World magazine, said police using thermal cameras on helicopters to detect heat lamps in growers lofts or garden sheds are being thwarted by new techniques – “they are probably finding less than 10% of home-grown cannabis,” he said. Cannabis seeds can be legally bought in the UK, but cultivating them can lead to 14 years in prison. Since cannabis was downgraded to a class C drug in 2003, there have been calls for it to be reclassified again as more recent research points to links between the drug and mental illness. As cannabis cultivated at home is purer and more potent than street hashish these concerns have become more pressing. Professor Neil McKeganey, director of the Centre for Drug Misuse Research at the University of Glasgow, said he was not surprised at the trend. “It is almost the equivalent of home-brewing beer – home-growers are almost invisible. If you can grow cannabis at home, why go out and engage with a dealer or supplier?”McKeganey called for a “debate” on the changing culture of cannabis as the drug being grown privately rather than imported. He believes the health risks of high-strength cannabis are a serious concern. “There is a possibility that consumption of often very high-strength cannabis will increase considerably [because of home-growing]. At the moment, a quarter of teenagers consume cannabis – would that go up if growing at home is seen as normal and increases further?“The high strength strains being cultivated can give the same hallucinogenic effects as LSD, and may result in an increase in mental illness and diseases such as throat cancer.” Chief superintendent Stephen Ward of the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency rejected the suggestion that growing innovations have outrun detection. He said: “What we do is intelligence led – we are aware of the technique changes that growers are using.”Don Barnard of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance said it was time for “a grown-up response ... perhaps someone from the government should pop down to the HempExpo and have a look at what kind of tax revenue they could be making from it.” Source: Sunday Herald, The (UK)Author: Jenifer JohnstonPublished: October 9, 2005Copyright: 2005 Sunday HeraldContact: editor sundayherald.comWebsite: http://www.sundayherald.com/Related Articles:The Case for Small Home Growers http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18249.shtmlHalf of All Cannabis Possibly Grown at Home http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15953.shtmlProtect Private Cannabis Cultivators http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15748.shtml
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Comment #15 posted by afterburner on October 09, 2005 at 21:42:10 PT
Another Propaganda Myth Challenged
CN BC: Study Favours Pot Smoking In Pregnancy 07 Oct 2005
Goldstream Gazette
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n1596/a11.html
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Comment #14 posted by FoM on October 09, 2005 at 21:12:28 PT
goneposthole
Nah, couldn't be.
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Comment #13 posted by goneposthole on October 09, 2005 at 21:02:38 PT
Reefer Time
“There is a 100% link between imported cannabis and criminal networks, many of whom are involved in other types of crime such as prostitution, trafficking, or class A drugs. Home-growers do not want to be associated with that.”- Phil KilvingtonHomegrown can and would cripple the worldwide cannabis trade. Maybe that's why it is illegal to grow it.Nah, couldn't be.
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Comment #12 posted by Hope on October 09, 2005 at 15:51:12 PT
Weird vegetation.
Why is it that if you mix low quality cannabis with high quality cannabis...it won't make it all smoke like high quality...it just won't. It will with tobacco but not a different cannabis. It will be no better than the lowest quality, often. I don't know that that's always true, but I've seen it happen more than once, back in the day. It's a peculiarity of vegetables, I suppose.You mix tasteless carrots with the tasty carrots...you get a more tasteless carrot dish.
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Comment #11 posted by runderwo on October 09, 2005 at 14:36:29 PT
Hope
Yeah, that sentence is a pretty good summary. I was just going into the details of why that happens and why there is at least a vague semblance of truth in the claims that super-weed is different from brick.Also, after smoking a bunch of bad weed, I don't think super high quality stuff will help you "correct" your experience until you've come down from the bad stuff. I know this is true with the barely-passable schwag and the decent stuff I sometimes get, but I know that my "decent" is nowhere near what is possible in terms of pure THC or a good THC/CBD mix. Maybe someone else can comment on that.
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Comment #10 posted by Hope on October 09, 2005 at 12:57:37 PT
comment 7 ... what I think you said...
You can smoke bad weed all day long...it isn't going to do you any good...not even a ton of it. One puff of mighty pot is going to simply be wasted if you smoke more than you can stay awake with, unless that's what you are consuming it for. Some strains are so self limiting that "one toke over the line"...you're not high anymore. Weird stuff. Pot is. More like vegetables and fruit than anything else. Some times it's good...sometimes it's not so good...and sometimes it's worthless...worse than worthless, and sometimes ...sometimes it's wonderful...Holy even.
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Comment #9 posted by Hope on October 09, 2005 at 12:42:42 PT
"Heavy smoking and bronchitis"
The cure for or answer to that of course is less puffs or hits or whatever, less "heavy smoking"...with so called "super terrifying dangerous pot" that "never existed before...Oh no...Not in a million years." Comment 6 and 7...right on.
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Comment #8 posted by Hope on October 09, 2005 at 12:34:39 PT
An evil seed to plant in the minds of the young.
“The high strength strains being cultivated can give the same hallucinogenic effects as LSD, and may result in an increase in mental illness and diseases such as throat cancer.”The man is some sort of ...liar or lunatic or both.Why would he lie?
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Comment #7 posted by runderwo on October 09, 2005 at 11:31:24 PT
well
Super strong weed isn't quite the same as smoking a ton of weaker weed, in terms of recreational use. The only cannabinoid that really gets you high is THC. But smoking an amount of 100% THC isn't the same as 2x the amount of 50% THC isn't the same as 10x the amount of 10% THC. The reason for that is the psychoactively useless cannabinoids such as CBN that are present in greater proportion in weak cannabis end up blocking receptors that THC would have otherwise attached to. Continuing to intake THC past the point of receptor saturation has no further effect until the existing "junk" cannabinoids have been metabolized. So I can see where one could attain a peak experience off this type of weed that would otherwise be impossible to reach. But unless you just want to be wasted 24/7 (and if so, the law certainly won't prevent you from doing that), smoking it in the same quantity and frequency as your backyard schwag just doesn't make sense.Of course, these morons have never heard of hashish which leads them to bleat about this scary new weed "like nothing we've seen before". Or maybe the only hash they are familiar with is that "soapbar" poisonous junk in the UK which barely gets you high.
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Comment #6 posted by John Tyler on October 09, 2005 at 08:25:20 PT
another comment
Cold light technology, very interesting. Why do articles that think they are being balanced mention rabid antis like McKeganey and his unfounded assertions. Leave these people out altogether. Government has got to realize cannabis is not the bogeyman they have tried to make it. People already have their own experience with it and know it for what it is. People enjoy cannabis and want it legal now, and no amount of lies and oppression will change that. Political guys wake up.
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Comment #5 posted by siege on October 09, 2005 at 07:30:40 PT
Quake OT
To all the animals I have just killed in Alaska sorry, I had to use HAARP to show the world that I can KILL Terrorists. even if I hit the wrong place. GOD W, BUSH
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Comment #4 posted by charmed quark on October 09, 2005 at 05:43:35 PT
Say what?
There is no association between smoked cannabis(alone without tobacco)and any cancer ( there is an association between heavy smoking and bronchitis - a good reason to use a vaporizer). Even if there was, stronger cultivars would result in less smoking as smaller amounts would be needed. And less smoking means more throat cancer? Boy - that dope he's smoking really IS strong.Interesting article. They don't give anything to back it up, but it really would be cool if so many people were growing their own out of ethical concerns. I heard of a lot of people here in the USA doing it for that reason after the war on cannabis was started in 1970, causing criminal enterprises to start getting involved in the cannabis trade. -CQ
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Comment #3 posted by mayan on October 09, 2005 at 05:10:48 PT
LSD???
“The high strength strains being cultivated can give the same hallucinogenic effects as LSD, and may result in an increase in mental illness and diseases such as throat cancer.”Huh? That's all I need to read to realize that McKeganey is absolutely clueless. Wow.Here's some info on the recent Asian quake. The death toll could soar much higher...Over 18,000 dead in quake in Pak, PoK:
http://www.outlookindia.com/pti_news.asp?id=327757At a glance: Quake impact:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/south_asia/4322624.stmRecent Quakes:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.html
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Comment #2 posted by kaptinemo on October 09, 2005 at 04:36:54 PT:
And this proves how unqualified an expert he is
*“The high strength strains being cultivated can give the same hallucinogenic effects as LSD, and may result in an increase in mental illness and diseases such as throat cancer.”*Ach, an if yooo do-in't watch oot, yooo cahn get the clahp frum dirrrty toilet seats! Not a single case of throat cancer is attributable solely to cannabis usage. (Remember, folks, throughout Europe, they often mix their weed with tobacco; of course, the 'Good Perfesser' doesn't mention this fact, thus leading a naive audience into thinking cananbis is inherently dangerous. Typical anti shell, game; watch the pea!) He admits in other articles the mental health connection might be reversed, and the cortexually imbalanced (I hate that term, 'mentally ill'; it's too broad a paintbrush to slap people with, and too prone to excuse barbaric behavior used to 'treat' it) may be self-medicating to stave off the worst aspects of their conditions.And finally, I'd LOVE to get my hands on this super-duper acid weed! You'd probably have to use it in microgram dosages to achieve the same effect as 5 ounces of the best hash used simultaneously. Think of mow much money we could save! We'll have to come up with a new name for this all-powerful plant; how about BritBomb?Coming back to the real world, a more appropriate title might be...BS. We're back to the old craziness of banning the substance because of properties it doesn't have that are attributed to other, completely chemically different substances that do. Some expert. (Raucous belly laughter)
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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on October 09, 2005 at 04:18:03 PT:
An article that puts Professor McKeganey in the
proper perspective:Thanks to Richard Cowan's Marijuana News for the indepth dissection: http://www.marijuananews.com/news.php3?sid=807This is one of the UK 'experts' who first categorically stated that cannabis use leads to schizophrenia. But in other articles, he does the anti's trademark bob and weave: http://tinyurl.com/ad6s5From the latter article:*According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), depression, anxiety, and personality disturbances have been associated with marijuana use. However, the NIDA says it is not known whether marijuana use is an attempt to self-medicate an already existing mental health problem, or whether marijuana use leads to mental disorders (or both). "The evidence is collectively indicating that there is a causal connection," says Neil McKeganey, PhD, professor of drug misuse at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. McKeganey notes that scientists have not yet uncovered evidence linking marijuana use to the brain changes routinely seen in people who suffer from mental illness. "If we wait until we understand that mechanism, we will lose thousands of young people," he says.*Cue Gollum: "It doesssss, Preciousssssss, it doesssss!" [gollum cough] "No, no, Precious, it don't!")Looks like the so-called 'experts' are the ones who have the 'of two minds' problem, not the cannabists.
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